


nice cape bro did your mom make it

by badbavarois



Series: iw can't hurt you if it never happened [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity War Doesn't Exist, M/M, background peter/flash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 16:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14793572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badbavarois/pseuds/badbavarois
Summary: Stephen Strange pops up on the Avengers' radar.Tony marks it off as an anomaly. He doesn’t stay that way for long.





	nice cape bro did your mom make it

**Author's Note:**

> same universe as a field trip to moma? tentatively? anyway i hope you like it i've never written ironstrange before but they're cute

It’s the tail end of August and Peter is trying to convince Tony that Mr. Stark  _ has  _ to drive him to school for his first day, because  _ Aunt May can’t and I don’t want to ride the bus the first day you know mine is always late, come on Mr. Stark -  _

 

They’re in the lab, and Peter is sitting on a stool, criss-cross applesauce so he can finally start his summer work. Tony programmed Karen to remind him to do it periodically over the summer, but apparently, it didn’t work. He’s not surprised. At this point, he doubts even Steve could be a strong enough influence to curb his procrastination. 

 

“You’re a senior,” he says around the screwdriver clenched between his teeth. It comes out muffled, but he knows Peter can still understand him.

 

“What’s your point?”

 

Tony puts the screwdriver down, leaning against the workbench to look at Peter. Tony has a hard time reconciling with his age - he’s still so young, baby-faced, but Tony’s put him through more than anyone should ever have to deal with. It shows, sometimes, in the corners of his eyes, in the way he holds himself during the debriefing after a rough mission. 

 

He looks young now, but even still - 

 

“You’re not the youngest one on the team,” he ends up saying. “If anyone’s getting a ride to daycare, it’s Vision.”

 

Peter pouts. “I’ll get Happy to drive me.”

 

“He’s on vacation.”

 

“ Rhodey?”

 

“DC. Some Pentagon meeting.”

 

Peter’s quiet for a few minutes, and Tony assumes he’s given up and gone back to his homework, so he starts on a circuit for one of the robots. It’s not needed - the current one will hold out a few more months at least, but Tony never knows where he’ll be next week, or even tomorrow.

 

“Thor!” 

 

Tony stabs himself in the hand, jerking his head up to look at Peter. He’s only slightly annoyed.

 

“I’ll get Thor to drive me.” Peter looks so smug, Tony doesn't feel an ounce of remorse when he says Thor can’t drive, barely even knows what a car is. “Doesn’t matter. He’ll summon the Bifrost and carry me with his manly muscles. ” 

 

Tony kicks Peter out of the lab after that.

 

…

 

An hour later, Friday is sending off an alarm. It’s nothing big, a steady - if quiet - beep, a pop up in the corner of one of the screens in the lab. He glances at the energy signature - not the Bifrost or Thor, not the  Chitauri again , probably just an intern fucking around in another lab - and writes it off.

 

Five minutes later, Peter’s calling.

 

_ “Mr. Stark!”  _ His voice is shaky, but it’s not the connection.  _ “I think - I think I just saw a wizard?” _

 

“I thought I told you to not do drugs, kid.” He keeps working. Peter probably just stumbled too close to Manhattan on his way home from the tower. 

 

_ “No - you, like, definitely don’t understand.” _

 

“When was it?”

 

_ “Five minutes ago.” _

 

The same time as the energy signature, then. Tony marks it off as an anomaly and keeps working. Weirder things have happened in New York before, after all.

 

…

 

A few weeks later, Tony puts a name to the energy signature. 

 

Stephen Strange is an ex-doctor turned not-wizard with a stupid necklace and a too-short cape and hair he feels the need to move even when there’s no wind. Tony thinks his face shape is stupid and his personality is worse - he’s almost as condescending and narcissistic as Tony himself - but Tony, strangely, doesn’t hate him. 

 

“Earth’s mightiest heroes,” Strange muses. “You’re not very good at your job.”

 

“And why, pray tell, is that?” He doesn’t have a suit on - there’s one on a roof two blocks away, waiting to deploy, but Tony’s a walking target right now. He could have worn the nanobot suit, but it’s not ready. If  _ Doctor Strange  _ wanted him dead, there’s not much he can do.

 

He shouldn’t find that grounding.

 

“I was on the other side of the country when New York - “

 

“That’s old news, pal,” Tony cuts him off. “That was like - twenty twelve. I’m a new person now. AA meetings, yoga in the park, the whole shebang.”

 

“I’m sure.” Strange’s voice is dry. Tony changes his mind. He hates him, bone-deep. 

 

“Stay out of New York,” he settles on. It’s not what he wants to say and he sounds like Peter, back when he was fourteen and first starting out, but it’s better than nothing. He won’t let someone named  _ Stephen  _ have the last word. 

 

“I thought you said New York was old news,” Strange says anyway. Tony bites back a growl. Or, possibly a groan. Some noise of annoyance, at any rate. 

 

“Fuck off.”

 

…

 

It’s barely a week before Strange is back. They run into each other in, of all places, a tiny coffee shop. 

 

He’s not wearing the cape this time - it’s replaced by a black wool peacoat - but Tony can still make out the faint glow of his amulet. He tries not to notice Strange’s hands, thin and long and pale with perfect linear scars. He wants to know where they came from all the same.

 

“So is the wizard shtick just a part-time job?” he asks as he drops into the seat opposite. Strange doesn’t look up from whatever he’s reading. Tony tries to make it out upside down, but he doesn’t think it’s in English or the little bit of French he remembers from high school. 

 

When his coffee is dropped off, he steals Strange’s muffin. Only one bite is missing, but there’s a fork next to the plate with crumbs still clinging to it. Tony doesn’t care either way; asshole wizard germs are the least of his problems. 

 

“You’re still here.” Strange says, finally closing his book thirty minutes later. He glances at his plate, frowning when he sees his muffin is gone. It deepens when the waitress brings Tony his third refill, and Strange’s first. “Do you need something?”

 

“Just wondering what you were up to. This doesn’t seem - “ he glances around, “ - like your usual place.” 

 

“I like their coffee.” He sounds self-conscious. Tony tucks that observation away. 

 

“That’s fair.” He stands, drops a fifty in the tip jar, and leaves Strange to settle the bill.

 

…

 

He’s still up at four AM, and he’s three pages deep on google, trying to find everything there is to know about Stephen Strange. 

 

His Wikipedia page is disappointingly short - graduated summa cum laude from Columbia’s medical school, did his residency in New York, moved on to be the head neurosurgeon in a handful of hospitals across the country. After a car accident that destroyed his hands, he dropped off the map. 

 

Tony’s own hands twitch at that. 

 

It doesn’t mean anything.

 

…

 

He joins May and Peter for his parent-teacher conference halfway through November. 

 

He sits on his phone for most of it, half listening -  _ yes,  _ Peter is doing exceptionally in his classes,  _ yes,  _ the decathlon team is preparing for worlds,  _ yes,  _ his ban from the library has ended and won’t be reinstated unless the ‘incident’ is repeated. 

 

“Mr. Stark?” the teacher says, “What do you think?”

 

He glances up; he’d been reading an article about the mystic arts written by a conspiracy theorist on Reddit. 

 

“About what?”

 

“About continuing his internship with your company. It looks excellent on his college applications and provides invaluable experience, but - “

 

Tony remembers Peter’s sophomore year, when he told him he was off the team, a flight risk. He still stands by that decision. Peter wasn’t ready then, but he is now. Besides, seeing Peter pout is almost as bad is as seeing a puppy pout.

 

“No.” Peter tenses beside him, bracing for impact. “He keeps the internship.”

 

And then Peter breathes beside him, a soft smile on his face. Tony hopes he won’t come to regret that.

 

…

 

Afterward, he goes back to the coffee shop. Strange isn’t there, but a barista recognizes him from when he came before, smiles when he asks for whatever the doctor normally gets. 

 

It’s a latte, sugary sweet. Tony’s nose scrunches as he drinks it, gagging it down more than anything. On his phone, he finds Stephen Strange’s doctoral thesis and reads the abstract. It’s dense and far from Tony’s expertise, but it’s calming all the same. 

 

He stares out the window and watches people walk by and thinks,  _ yes, I could stand to live like this. _

 

…

 

It’s two more months before he sees Strange again. 

 

It’s different this time, and he knows what’s changed - missing someone, waiting to see them return, that breathless catch in your lungs - but he’s not sure what gave. He felt that, once, with Pepper, after the Jericho missiles in Afghanistan, but he never felt it again. 

 

At least there’s no waterboarding, this time. You have to count your blessings somewhere. 

 

So when something gives way, he’s not sure what to do with it. Tony doesn’t do - feelings. Doesn’t do relationships, doesn’t do dates that don’t end in someone’s bed. Tony Stark doesn’t do  _ longing.  _

 

But still, Stephen Strange is standing in Avengers’ HQ in that shitty not-Harry-Potter-costume, hair dripping down his forehead and jaw from the rain outside. Tony hates him, for half of a second. He wishes it was longer, but just barely. 

 

“Finally decide to join the club?” They’re in the kitchen -  _ Wanda’s,  _ Vision insisted until it sunk into their collective lexicon - and Tony’s ransacking the cabinets for almond butter. He could make a kale smoothie without it, but - he’s not quite sure what it adds. Peter would ramble on about  _ je ne sais quoi  _ if he was here, in his terrible high school level French accent, and the kid’s taking  _ Spanish  _ for fuck’s sake so it’s somehow even worse - 

 

“Of course not,” Strange scoffs, dragging Tony back into the moment. He finds the almond butter behind a tin of cornstarch and turns to face Strange.

 

“Why are you here, then?” He needs to wash the apple now, peel and slice it. 

 

“I was in the neighborhood.” His posture is awkward. Tony tucks that away, back with the time in the cafe. 

 

“Are you the Lorax now? Friends with the trees? We’re in the middle of nowhere.” 

 

“Is it your job to make almost witty comments?”

 

The corner of his mouth twitches up. He swallows it down. “Why are you really here?”

 

He doesn’t see Dr. Strange leave. There shouldn’t be a hollow feeling in his chest. It’s empty all the same.

 

…

 

The next time, it’s five days later, two AM and Tony can’t sleep. He’s in one of the labs when a proximity alarm goes off. If it’s Peter, that kid’s as good as - 

 

“Tony.” There’s a strain in his voice, a dialect he doesn’t know but he can translate all the same. 

 

He drops something - he can’t remember what he was holding, it doesn’t matter if it broke, he can more than afford a new one - and there’s blood on his hands. Tony would ask how he managed to make it all the way to the lab, but he doesn’t know how much more Strange can take before he’s over the edge.

 

They’re both quiet while Tony sews him up. The room is near silent, save the push of a needle through the pale skin of his shoulder, Strange’s slightly labored breathing. 

 

“What am I going to do with you,” Tony finally says. It’s not a question, but not entirely a statement, either. Tony looks at the sutures so he doesn’t look at Stephen’s mouth, lips bit raw. “But you already know what I will, don’t you.”

 

“I can only see possibilities. I never know which will come to pass, only which are most likely in the current moment.” 

 

“Can you see the future now?”

 

“I always can. You learn to suppress the stone, eventually.”

 

“What do you see now?” He knows what he wants; he would give anything to know what Strange does. 

 

“Eight point four million futures where you kiss me.” 

 

“And?” Swallows, prepares to fold. 

 

“Kiss me and find out.”

 

It’s not consent, not completely, but he leans in all the same, slow enough that Strange could pull away if he wanted to.  _ Please don’t pull away _ , he thinks, hoping the infinity stone lets him read minds, somehow.

 

It doesn’t. Strange listens all the same. 

 

Tony doesn’t know what he expected Strange’s mouth to taste like, but it’s not this - too sweet coffee and copper and mint, chapped lips and warm pressure. Strange kisses back, hard. His hands come up from where they had been gripping the edge of the table to squeeze Tony’s hips, a quiet  _ is this okay.  _

 

Tony kisses harder. He’s careful, all too aware of the fresh stitches, as he brings his hands to Strange’s head, one hand cradling his jaw as the other cards through his hair. It’s electric, and overwhelming, and too imperfectly perfect for a first kiss. 

 

When he finally pulls away, his hands stay in place. 

 

“I’m not letting go until you tell me too,” he says. Strange’s hands feel like brands on his hips, burning through his sweatpants. 

 

“What makes you think I want you to?” The edge of Strange’s -  _ Stephen’s  _ \- mouth quirks up. He’s too pale, a little clammy. Tony shouldn’t find him so attractive. “I can see every possible future. There isn’t a single one where I want that.”

 

And that’s all the confirmation Tony needs, before he’s kissing him again.

 

…

 

It’s a week before Peter catches them. He drops a bottle of water; it rolls down the stairs, leaking. Tony definitely won’t be the one to clean it up. He doubts Peter will be, either. 

 

“It’s the wizard!” He’s smiling, all too pleased with himself, as he says, “I told you he was real, Mr. Stark!”

 

Stephen, the asshole, chooses that moment to press a kiss to Tony’s cheek.

 

Peter frowns. “Isn’t that your shirt, Mr. Stark? Does this mean I can bring Flash to the lab, then? Since you’re bringing your boyfriend?”

 

Tony is 99.9% sure this is what cardiac arrest feels like. Stephen’s laugh is only slightly worth it. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! comments/kudos are appreciated, requests are open since i'm out of school, but like always, they're not guaranteed.  
> tumblr - shuos-jedao/claude-lit  
> twitter - saphhojpg


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